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Originally Posted by 4691mls
My (admittedly limited) understanding about Android is that even if your device doesn't receive Android system updates, you can still get updates for Google play and for many apps (at least as long as the newer versions work on your level of Android).
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Correct. You can still get app updates. For that matter, you can side-load them from sites other than Google Play Store, but you need to dig into Settings and toggle "Allow apps from unknown sources". Doing so
is a security risk - you must trust the unknown source, and many aren't trustworthy. But those that are can be lifesavers. What if an update proves a problem, and you want to revert back to the last known working version? The Play Store only carries current versions. You have to hunt for a mirror site that preserves earlier ones.
You do still have the problem of whether a new app works on the version of Android you have. (The Play Store will tell you an app isn't compatible with the version of Android you run and won't let you download it.) But that's true for any computing device. New OS versions add new capabilities, and applications are written to use them. If your OS version is too old, a recent app may fail to run.
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I guess how important this is depends on what you are doing with the device.
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Yes. That's the case no matter what you use and what you do with it, and is applicable to PCs as well as mobile devices.
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It is frustrating that makers of Android devices generally don't seem to support system updates beyond about two or three years, apparently assuming that most people would want to upgrade to a newer phone after that time anyway (kind of goes along with the thread in the General forum about non-replaceable batteries.)
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In general, that's actually a decent assumption. Most folks
do get new devices every few years. Higher end and more expensive devices that you might keep for a longer period may get Android OS updates. Lower end devices likely won't. (And devices get steadily more powerful. An older device may not be able to
run a new Android release.)
I'm in a discussion elsewhere about 5G service, and one of the posters dislikes "planned obsolescence" and thinks of 5G as solely something to get people to buy new phones. That's not how it works. It's
driven obsolescence, and the driver is what folks want to
do with their devices.
These days, in developed nations, at least, decent broadband is considered a necessity, and there's no such thing as enough bandwidth. The driver for ever higher broadband speed is
video, and that's true for phones as well as PCs. High end smartphones these days are fancy digital cameras that happen to also place and receive calls. The cameras have increasingly high megapixel ratings, and the files they create when you take pictures or videos are increasingly larger. Once you have taken them, then what? You want to upload them to a server where they will actually be stored, and delete the original from your device. You
don't want to grow old and grey waiting for that to happen. Enter 5G.
And what uses a 5G connection doesn't have to be a phone. Where do you
get broadband? Normally, you get it because a broadband provider has a cable running to you to deliver the broadband. What if you are out in the boonies with no cable because you are too far away to make running a cable to you practical? If you have 5G, you can get decent broadband via cellular service. What connects to 5G on your end may be a WiFi router, not a phone.
Researchers in Finland are working on the next step beyond 5G, and debating whether to call it 5G LTE or just call it 6G. It will use parts of the RF spectrum that haven't been practical to use in the past but can be now with newer technology. Effective broadband for the whole country is a Finnish national priority, and you aren't likely to see the conspiracy theories about 5G adoption you can find elsewhere.
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Dennis